Nearly led them a Merida-nce

Been on my own international break.

Arsenal haven't really been the same team since theirs.

Was hoping to use my "merry dance" pun tonight but a defeat was what I expected. To be fair, for the first 5 minutes it would be an accurate description. We were moving the ball round well, lots of intricate passing and the possession stats were near-on 100%. It genuinely seemed to unerve the Greeks on the pitch and especially in the stands. Did you notice there weren't any women in the whole ground, including the hairy "cheerleaders"?

Arsene said before the game that fielding this young team would be true to the competition by providing a more motivated side, rather than a more experienced team who had nothing to play for. He was right (again). They genuinely had something to prove and places to fight for. Ramsey responded well and at times looked real quality. By no means the finished article, but some of his passing was sublime. He's got that physical edge too. In a team of full teenagers, he looked experienced and composed. Merida increasingly showed us why Wenger wants to keep him in and around the first team.

A lot of the talk had been of the rising young star Wilshere. I wonder whether he's beginning to believe his own hype. I've seen him play Carling Cup games and even in the Emirates Cup pre-season where he played the rest out the park. But he's trying too hard at the moment, taking people on and running into trouble rather than picking the right pass. Maturity will play a big part here.

Interestingly, rather than showing his experience, Vela seemed to be dragged down by playing in a team full of youngsters. He lacked composure, seems to be brushed off the ball to easily and missed one very good chance at least to score. Again, I've see him play brilliantly and finish with such confidence. That seems to be missing and a Vela firing on all cylinders would really help our first team. All I could think was if there was anyone that I would have wanted on the end of the Ramsey pass that Vela missed, it would have been Arshavin.

Walcott showed that his pace and intelligent running comes naturally and doesn't diminish everytime he has a lay-off due to injury. Let's hope he finds his feet (literally) quickly because Aaron Lennon has begun to show that he can pass and cross and is currently looking more likely to go to South Africa this Summer.

I was very impressed with what I saw and quite enjoyed the game. A luxury to be able to watch a champions league game, knowing you've qualified top and have nothing to worry about - including to a large degree, any of your players getting injured.

We've had a very disjointed few weeks and I hope the first team can get back on track against Liverpool at the weekend.

I've noticed a strange psychological thing going on. Arsene must have said to them early this season that it is not results against the big teams that win you the title, its how you do against the rest - citing United as an example. I've seen quotes from various squad members referring to this idea too.

In essence he is right, but it seems to have been taken too literally by the team and almost given them an excuse for not winning these games. So far it has been taken literally as we've lost to United, City and Chelsea. Spurs are obviously not classed as a big team, because we beat them.

Fortunately Liverpool are not looking like a real challenge for the title this year, which leads me to feel we might just get something out of this game, but with some key players missing it is asking for some of our other players to step up and be counted.

Very grateful that its on sky, so I don't have to struggle with poor illegal streams. Is there a market for providing a quality stream to paying customers? Would it really damage crowd numbers?

Anyway, I'm looking forward to it.

'til next time